Morfael
by northern.snow.leopard.kitsune
Summary: Lyra's daughter is 14 and her daemon has still not settled. Living in Oxford, this spunky new character is a lot more than you realise... Join her on her journey to find out why this is. Bad summary I know, but have a read!
1. Chapter 1

Hana ran through Holywell Street, crying. Oh how she'd get those stupid Magdalen boys, oh yes she would! How dare they try and take her pride from her! She closed her eyes so that the passers by would not see her tears. The Broad Street- Magdelen Street junction was busier than usual today, but Hana navigated well and true towards the Nuffield College fish pond, where she could think her revenge up.

Her daemon, Morfaeliyoreskon, was lonely and disconsolate- ordinarily she would be perched on Hana's shoulder whispering words of comfort and hope until Hana's mother could get there and the true parenting would begin. But today Morfael was lost because she was part of the problem, and Hana would not let her touch her until she was calmed enough. So Morfael watched and waited, while Hana laid down on her belly and fed the fish at Nuffield whatever she thought they wanted. Eventually the tears ceased and Hana lay still, thinking.

"Morfael?" She whispered.

"I am here." Her daemon would always be there.

"I think it would be best if you took me to Wolfson or Green." Those were her other public, yet private, sanctuaries- her parents' colleges, and where she could remember playing and being played with since she could think.

So Morfael led her human up Worcester Street onto and the beginning of the Banbury Road to Green Templeton College- her father's college. Hana came in and slipped by the porter, who nodded at her. She turned round in the courtyard, and looked around for any of her father's colleagues or students. Hana spotted Thomas Gelding, a man her father lectured who was fairly approachable. She quietly went up to him and asked him where she might find a Mr. Culvigard today. Thomas replied that her father was still on lunch and was up at Wolfson visiting a Ms Silvertongue. Thanking Thomas, Hana turned back and walked in a calm and controlled manner across to the Woodstock Road, where she kept going until Linton Road, for along Linton Road was where Wolfson College could be found.

Upon entering the Porter's lodge, Hana checked her mother's pigeonhole. It was full of stuff, including several spare keys and odd gold coins. Hana left that and walked past the central courtyard to the dining hall entrance, which was laid with Carrere marble. She entered that and went up the main steps. But then she turned the corner however, and walked up the steps carved in the marble away from the second set of doors. This went up above the dining hall, and was where her mother's office was. Nobody questioned Hana; they were much too used to seeing her to wonder what she was up to now.

Hana pushed open the door to her mother's life. She was immediately hit with the smell of gardenia, faint but always there. She could hear two voices talking animatedly- her parents, and then she could almost feel the tension in the atmosphere, as her parents realised someone was there. Probably speaking out their views again, Hana thought.

"Ma? Pa?"

"Hana." The word was spoken from her father to her mother, but not as a question. A reassurance perhaps. That it wasn't a Church member there, just their daughter.

"Can I ask you something?" Her mother consented, and beckoned her in, Morfael following quite closely. Hana's face was clear and determined- right now there would be no crying, no weakness. She wanted answers and revenge and she wanted them now.

"Ma, why is Morfael not settled yet? Why is she like a witch's daemon, why does it not hurt if she goes away from me?" Her mother. Lyra Silvertongue. If anyone knew, she would. Her mother had been to other worlds and fought the Church, loved a murderer from another world, and seen ghosts and the land of the dead, and fought alongside armoured bears and witches against Spectres and men, and then walked among angels as their equal. Lyra Silvertongue would know because she could read the alethiometer, and the alethiometer could tell her everything.

"Perhaps it is because you're not ready to settle- and you know how Pan and I are like a witch's daemon, able to stay worlds apart. Perhaps it is a hereditary skill, once acquired. I don't know, but I know that if you are ready to settle, your daemon will settle." Hana nodded once, but pressed her mother for more information- what exactly was it like? Could you tell if your daemon was about to make a permanent form? Lyra tried to answer as best as she could, but in the end she just asked why Hana wanted to know.

Through gritted teeth Hana told her mother that the boys at Magdalen College School had been telling her that she was a freak because she could pull Morfael 5 feet away from her. Of course Hana could make Morfael go entire countries away from her, but it was never shown to anyone but Lyra. They also asked her how old she was, and when Hana proudly announced she was 14 years old, they laughed and said she must be mentally retarded. However, Hana wasn't saying all this through gritted teeth because she was reluctant to tell her mother- Hana was too angry inside, she was seething horribly and used more of that self control to stop her voice quavering.

Lyra Silvertongue's face scowled horribly. She remembered her vivid childhood before the coming of rebellion, and was not ashamed to admit she too had been teased for various things about her- but mostly Lyra was queen of all around her, a natural leader and deceiver who could think up eleven different stories in half a minute who nobody dared attack, because Pantalaimon would crush their daemon to smithereens. And because Lyra belonged to Jordan College, which was the best and most prestigious college in Oxford, and knew it (but that was a lesser reason.)

"How then, do you strike revenge?" Hana smirked.

"You read my mind, Ma. I want to stage a prank."

There it's finished! First Chapter!

It is a slow start, but I have half the other chapters planned in my head.


	2. Planning the Prank filler

Morfael II- The Prank

Hana had never actually gone to school, so getting free time to pull off this prank was a lot easier than usual. The problem was how to prank the boys. She couldn't do anything that injured them too much, because then Ms. Silvertongue would be lectured on the behaviour of her child and there would be enquiries as to whether she could not afford her child's education, and Hana would be forced to go to Cherwell where the gypsies went, and she would become slow and mucky like the gypsies were, and-

Hana realised she'd punctured through the parchment, scribbling so viciously she'd not realised she'd broken it. Morfael flipped through the air gracefully to get her another sheet. This time, Hana calmed herself down more, and began again in slow but neat symbols. This was a special code- the alethiometer's code. Hana could read it as well as her mother could but this was only because she'd been caught staring at it for hours on end- back when the alethiometer was proudly displayed in a crystal case on a silken crimson pad. Which was why Hana would write in this understanding sort of code, so that only she and her mother could read it (and Morfael and Pan, but they didn't really count.)

Her scribing done, Hana sat back and re-read what she had written-

_Plans of Attack_

_1. Get load of water guns and build automatic machine to fire them at target._

_2. Chewers gum sticking all the keypads up and closing doors together_

_3. Put cheap paintings up around the school of nude females or the Headmaster wearing embarrassing outfits_

_4. Let an army of slugs and snails into the changing room_

_5. Put fake piles of scats everywhere._

_6. Whoopee cusions._

Hana debated- she decided she would perform 2, 4 and 6, because she felt like being even and their total was 12 which was her lucky number.

Evilly, a small little smirk spread across her porcelain face, and the brown eyes narrowed, and an invisible breeze blew so her dirty blonde hair swayed- thus, thus was the vengeance of Hana Silvertongue, feared by all.

Morfael curled up tidily as a black cat, a green eye closing lazily, the other staring in disapproval.

"Sometimes I wonder that we are two in one." she remarked.

"As do I- you never understand the fun in being evil! Where's the little spark of interest in being merciful, huh? Where can you truly stop being bored? When you're planning the demise of some poor unsuspecting pebble, or a whole planet! Mwahahaahaa! Mwahahaahaa!" Hana giggled and rolled.

"Very nice."

"Why thank yoooooooouuuuuuu! Finally you see the brilliance of my plans and amazingness of my deluded brain!" yowled Hana, swaying gregariously. She fell from her crosslegged position to the floor, and dragged Morfael with her. The black cat-daemon shook its head and hissed at the girl who was now cracking up with laughter.

"Roflmao."

"I think you drank too much Monster." Morfael deadpanned.

"I do too."

This was a bit of a filler chapter, to explain what the prank was. Sorry it just had to be so short.


	3. The Prank concluded

Hana waited until the boys had gone to games before releasing her trap. The Gum had been no problem to acquire, she met a girl whose father was a don at Oriel who could chew gum for England and was only too happy to help get back at MCS. The keypads were also the easiest thing to find, them being stationed outside the entrance to every building. She sent Morfael to observe as an ordinary pigeon outside the boys changing rooms, and the daemon came back with the four digit code. The slugs and snails Hana dug up herself, helping Wolfson College's gardeners whom had been attempting to remove pesky worms and other pests for little over a month now.

The whoopee cushions- also easy, seeing how Celebrations on Market Street did every practical joke you could think of. The getting to the chairs and such required more careful thinking, but she bribed a boy from Abingdon with the promise of graffitiing his school rowing blades to pretend he was at MCS. All in all, not bad. Everyone else brought her bits and pieces, it was Hana's job to stitch it all together.

The tidal wave of boys eager to practice their cricket bowling over, she reached into her now gungy rucksack and pulled out the first wodge of gum, and smeared it all over the keypads. This she did slyly, with the practiced air of a pickpocket. Despite her honour and other such factors, Hana had been part of a Cherwell-lot-based Gang before, and one of the kids had been on the street. She was just about ready to cry, they all were, having run out of money when Don revealed a pearl of advice-

"If you know how to do it, you can't starve in Oxford. We don't need money, don't use it, just take what we need." He proceeded to drag them to Sainsbury's where they loitered around the self-service checkouts and eventually ask for another plastic bag- pretending their bag had just split. That accomplished, Don took them to Marks and Spencer, where he filled up the Sainsbury's bag surreptitiously. Then he glanced around and told them to go do their work. Steal, nick, pikey, whatever they called it. But the same inconspicuous movements had stayed with Hana ever since, and if she ever did run out of coins she only had to put it her bag and it was hers. Which was probably why nobody moved to tell her off when she put the gum on all the keypads bar one- the changing rooms.

Now she prodded the last keypad impatiently, praying it worked, and Morfael's excellent eyesight held true. Reaching into her rucksack once more, Hana brought out a shoebox full of snails worms and slugs, and all sorts of molluscs. She thought some of them might be dead, but it didn't matter, they were added effect. The changing rooms smelt of deodorant , which was usual, and she quickly dumped the contents of the shoebox in the middle of the room before she exited, and true to her word, gummed up every single keypad in Magdalen College School. Deciding to add a little spice, she brought out her weed killer spray and artistically drew an armoured bear. '_we send our regards'_ she wrote neatly beside it, and moved on. The whoopee cushions should be in place by now, and she made sure to instruct this Henry Moorley to add pins onto the top of the cushions, for 'extra discomfort.' Grinning maliciously, she left, her plan complete.

The uproar reached the press not soon after. Lyra called her child into her office on Sunday morn, and when Hana arrived her mother was the picture of serene beauty- coffee cup in hand, unmarked Theseus drafts on the table and roll-on eye bags remover applied. And yet, sitting with the Oxford times open so Hana could see her work on the front page, she seemed calm.

"Good work Hana", she congratulated mildly. "You made the front page, though the Bear was a bit much darling. It reveals too much artistic talent, too much attention seeking for my liking." Such was Lyra's parenting- it comes, it goes, but always with the same languid remarks. The passionate young woman from twenty years ago was replaced by a drier thirty-four year old who had seen it all and remained calm- Hana had never known that lady so driven to save her world for her and for Will, though she knew of that man. Lyra was frank with her new family- she had loved another man truly and would not regret loving him, but she loved Matthew differently. Theirs would be long lasting fondness, a good partnership in business- for marriage is a business and perhaps the most delicate one. But she would not give him passion and soul, because that was for Will alone.

Hana gave a half-bow and accepted the praise in typical fashion- with a grunt. Lyra sighed and wondered if her child had always been this articulate, and Lyra always said what she thought, regardless of years gone by.

"Mama, I am most deeply offended" the younger smiled. "I would have thought the Bear sealed the deal- Magdalen College being so proud as they are of their new Swimming Club, which can be likened to a seal, and we all know what happens when a Bear meets a seal. It was triumph of wit."

"That may be, but I would rather you work on the Triumph of Love instead. You have studies, perhaps it is best you actually do them. As I recall, Hermione is waiting on your Japanese project, no?"

"Yes, Mum" she sighed defeatedly, and waltzed out of the office in delicate frames of mind alternating between awe for the powerful creature that was her mother and resent for the pressure on her academic work. As far as Hana could remember, she had no need to work, only pass a few tests called SATs every now and then, and the rest of the time to holiday. The school system was so slow- she would much rather read at her own pace and learn what interested her than be stuck listening to boring old drivel. But recently Lyra had been more stern with her, insisting she take Applied Mathematics books home instead of just her Philosophy, History, Economics Theory of Language and Proto-Indo-European Sanskrit texts. Those were her best subjects- according to her father she practically had Firsts in those, and a Second in Music. The Second in Music, she fancied, was just flattery, as there was no way she could play anything other than an old flute she found at the Sobell House Charity Shop for a pound and sixty pence.


End file.
